Quaker Thought and Life Today
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Quaker Thought and Life Today VOLUME 9 NOVEMBER 1, 1963 NUMBER 21 A Safe Fence Around Mount Sinai by Moses Bailey @oR u ligion b'gins with life, not with theory or report. The life is mightier than the The Inner Bidding-Norway, 1963 book that reports it. The most important thing in the world by Douglas V. Steere is to get our faith out of a book and out of a creed into living experience an d deed of life. T hat is exactly what Jesus Alone-with-ness did in the synagogue when he read the program of the L ord's by Henry B. Williams servant. H e translated ancient words into life. -RuFus M . JoNES Letter from Germany by Anni Sabine Halle Beyond and Within: Supplement of the Religious THIRTY CENTS Education Committee, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting $5.00 A YEAR 458 FRIENDS JOURNAL November 1, 1963 FRIENDS JOURNAL UNDER THE RED AND BLACK STAR AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE In the Field of Human Relations D I CHARD FORMAN, a member of Haverford (Pa.) .1\.. Meeting, is serving for two years as a volunteer in the VISA program of the American Friends Service Com mittee in Central America. His special assignment is in Published semimonthly, on the first and fifteenth of each Honduras, where he is a teacher in an agricultural school. month at 1515 Cherry Street, Philadelphia 19102, Penn sylvama1 (LO 3-7669) by Friends Publishing Corporation. Richard's problem has been how to use the lectures and CARL F. WISE laboratories in zoology and the periods in the English Acting Edltor language in such a way as to make a special contribution ETHAN A. NEVIN WILLlAM HUBBEN Assistant Editor Contributing Editor to the country which he has chosen for his service. BUSH CLlNTON Business Manager He felt that one contribution he could make in the MYRTLE M. WALLEN F. B. WALKER Advertisements Subscriptions classroom would be in teaching methods. His .first inno CONTRIDUTING CORRESPONDENTS vation was to use students as assistants in the laboratories. RICHARD R. WOOD, Philadelphia This was a good experience for the boys, and it gave England. ....................................... Horace B. Pointing, London Joan Hewitt, London Richard an opportunity to become better acquainted Germany............................... ...........................Anni Halle, Berlin Lebanon........ .. Calvin W. and Gwendolyn Schwabe, Beirut with some of them. Then he taught them how to get Southern Rhodesia.................. ......Maurice Webb, Bulawayo information, especially in the library. "One of the big wg~e~rst~ :.~.~~!. ::::~.~~~.. ::.. ~~.~~ .~~-. ~~a~~aiE~e~:r .. problems with Latin America," one of the boys told BOARD OF MANAGERS 1960-1964: Mary Roberts Calhou1,1 Eleanor Stabler Clarke, Richard, "is that no one knows how to get information." James Frorer, Francis Hortensune1 Emily Cooper Joh!l son, Elizabeth H. Kirk, Elizabeth Wells. 1961-1965: Carol The librarian remarked that this class uses the library P. Brainerd! Arthur M. Dewees, Miriam E. Jones, Emerson Lamb, Dan el D. Test, Jr. Anne Wood, Mildred Binns more than any other in the history of the school. Young. 1963-1966: Howard H. Brinton, Sarah P. Brock, Ada Rose Brown, Benjamin R. Burdsall_, Walter Kahoe, Richard's most difficult attempt at changing the teach Alfred Lowry, Jr., Philip Stoughton, Goraon D. Whitcraft, Carl F. Wise. ing pattern has been in trying to get away from the years THE JOURNAL ASSOCIATES are friends who add five and years of rote memorizing. The examinations he gives dollars or more to their subscriptions annually to help meet the over-all cost of publication. Make checks every month contain "thought questions," and although payable to Friends Publlshlng Corporation. Contribu tions are tax-exempt. protests have been loud that he should have the familiar SUBSCRIPTION RATES: United States, possessions: $5.00 a year, $2.75 for six months. Foreign countries, "true-false" questions and should ask the students to "fill including Canada and Mexico: $5.50 a year. Single copies: thirty cents, unless otherwise noted. Checks in the blank," he is winning through. should be made payable to Friends Journal. Sample copies sent on request. "The first thing that strikes a visitor to this school," Second Class Postage Paid at Philadelphia, Pa. writes Richard, "is that it is beautiful. As one drops down out of the mountains, the green of the school's fields is seen first, then the rows of flaming red of the African tulip trees, and later the shining silver of the royal palms Contents Page that shade the campus. Under the Red and Black Star .............. ...... ... 458 "But I am not a visitor," he adds. "I have come to Editorial Comments . 459 live in this valley. I have come to put my limited talents A Safe Fence Around Mount Sinai-Moses Bailey ...... .. 460 to use for the benefit of a few hundred agricultural stu Lunar Voyage (poem)-Elizabeth McLaughlin .. ........ 461 Chicory Flowers (poem)- Alice M. Swaim ............... 461 dents. Here I try to bring about a better understanding The Inner Bidding-Norway, 1963-Douglas V. Steere . ... 462 of biology and of the English language, but always my Alone-with-ness-Henry B. Williams ... ................ 463 real job is in the field of human relations." Religion and Psychology-Francenia T owle ... .. ....... 465 Letter from Germany-Anni Sabine Halle ......... ... .. 465 In Europe, in Asia and Africa, in Central America What Is Reality?-Henry C. Beerits ............ .. ..... 466 and the United States, young men and women are work Love and Learning-Peter and Faye Fingesten ........... 467 ing as volunteers under the Quaker star of service-at Indiana Yearly Meeting- Wanda Wright Clark .......... 468 Meeting Workers Institute--Lawrence McK. Miller, Jr . .. 468 many tasks, but always in the field of human relations. Beyond and Within-supplement of the R eligious Educa- tion Committee, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting ........ 468-A Books .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 469 The great purpose of life is to spend it for something that Friends and Their Friends ................... .. .. ... 470 outlasts it. Letters to the Editor .................................. 473 -WILLIAM JAMES / FRIENDS JOURNAL Successor to THE FRIEND (1827-1955) and FRIENDS INTELLIGENCER (1844-1955) EsTABLISHED 1955 PHILADELPHIA, NOVEMBER 1, 1963 VOL, 9-No. 21 Editorial Comments Man with a Concern encouragement now and then to keep the concern from NCE there was a Meeting which rejoiced in the withering. Friends should be much encouraged by the O possession of a courtly clerk. There were Friends quality of the response which the Peace Corps evokes who came to Monthly Meeting just to listen to him pre· everywhere that it is active. Even those in Washington side. He knew without hesitation the most apt and grace who professed to look on it with scorn now find it expe ful way to phrase a minute, partly because for him prob dient to do no worse than to withhold open praise. ity, propriety, and tradition were a way of life. Toward For Friends, the response to the Peace Corps is im the end of one meeting after he had been instructed to portant not because of its political implications, national write the fourth or fifth minute of gratitude to some or international, but because it is one more pragmatic resigning Friend, he remarked, "I fail to see why Friends confirmation of the validity of our peace testimony. How should be thanked for doing their manifest duty." The ever faithful we may be to it despite adversity, part of reason was quickly explained to him by his dear wife, our fidelity grows out of a conviction that it will work no less to his own amusement than that of the Meeting, when put in practice. Every fresh instance of its working but he was not alone in his opinion. not only in faith but in fact lays more of the burden of There can hardly be a Friend whose heart is not proof upon those who would like to hold our faith up warmed by the approval and good will of his fellow to scorn. members, but there are many who feel uncomfortable But it takes an almost heartbreaking number of years under praise. E. Raymond Wilson is one of them. He in the doing. Most Americans have never heard, for knows how often the flattering words bestowed upon the example, of the peace corps that functioned for years in chief belong to the underlings and how impossibly diffi the Philippines. The machinery of organization was cult and time-consuming it is to distribute the words somewhat different. Terms of service not having been justly among them. Better than anyone else, he knows limited to two years, there were some whose service con what his staff has meant to him. tinued for a life-time. But the corpsmen (and women) But that he has personified a concern is one praise went out with the same kind of selflessness in their moti he cannot escape. A concern is a spirit. That it may be vation and earned ~he same kind of love for themselves understood of men, the spirit must be made flesh. Many and ·their nation. years ago there began a concern that the testimonies of Most difficul't to cope with is the kind of condescen the Religious Society of Friends-t,he incarnate Kingdom sion with which the worker for peace is so often brushed of God as Friends understand it-should be applied to aside, as though he were a dear, lovable child who should national legislation, that there should be constantly some be allowed to enjoy his innocence as long as he can but one in Washington who could interpret the machinery who will know better when he grows up. But it is the and operation of government to Friends, and the hope idealist who is practical.